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False memories come easy
17/02/2003 14:28 - (SA)
Denver - Remember that wonderful day when Bugs Bunny hugged you at Disneyland? A study presented on Sunday shows just how easy it can be to induce false memories in the minds of some people.
More than a third of subjects in the study recalled that theme-park moment - impossible because Bugs is not a Disney character -after a researcher planted the false memory.
Other research, of people who believed they were abducted by space aliens, shows that even false memories can be as intensely felt as those of real-life victims of war and other violence.
The research demonstrates that police interrogators and people investigating sexual-abuse allegations must be careful not to plant suggestions into their subjects, said University of California-Irvine psychologist Elizabeth Loftus.
Loftus said some people may be so suggestible that they could be convinced they were responsible for crimes they didn't commit. In interviews, "much of what goes on - unwittingly - is contamination," she said.
The news media's power of suggestion also can leave a false impression, Loftus said.
"During the Washington sniper attacks, everyone reported seeing a white van," she said. "Where did it come from? The whole country was seeing white vans."
The key
A key, researchers said, is to add elements of touch, taste, sound and smell to the story.
In the Bugs Bunny study, Loftus talked with subjects about their childhood and asked not only whether they saw someone dressed up as the character, but also whether they hugged his furry body and stroked his velvety ears. In subsequent interviews, 36 percent of the subjects recalled the cartoon rabbit.
In another study, Loftus suggested frog-kissing incidents that 15 percent of the group later recalled.
"It is sensory details that people use to distinguish their memories," said Loftus, who has conducted false memories experiments on 20 000 subjects over 25 years. "If you imbue the story with them, you'll disrupt this memory process. It's almost a recipe to get people to remember things that aren't true." - Sapa-AP
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